Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture (state) have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011 meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The most recent statistics, released in August, show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children, a number that rose by 25 from a year earlier. Elsewhere, the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates."

In the rest of the world, children do not routinely get several ultrasounds per year to check for thyroid cancer. Is it really suprising that we'd find much more of something we're looking Really Hard to Find?

So, I guess my real question is: Where's the control population that gets the same checks as the Fukushima population? And what's their rate of thyroid cancer?

Precisely. There is no control group for what this person claims. When control groups are considered, these kids actually exhibit the same results. They find a lot more potentially cancerous cells when they screen with sensitive tests that have not been used before.

What was done here is to take one set of data from screening and ignore all others. And yet, people actually print this crap.

No, they are not cancer rates at all, they are discovery of potentially cancerous cells, most of which are benign. In any detailed screening using this method, you will discover more cases that would not normally be discovered.

The cancer rate is not higher than anywhere else. They tricked you into reading it that way.

It not a higher rate of cancer. It is a higher rate of *potentially* cancerous cells. But that is how screening works. Rather high false positive rates but generally much less invasive or cheaper than the more expensive test that has a low false positive rate.

Here is the test. I test 400,000 children for a cancer that has a prevalence rate of 1 in a million. The test has a.1% false positive rate. If my child tests positive what is the probability my child really has the cancer. Note most doctors get this wrong.

Close enough. We expect slightly less than half a person to have a true positive. So it is closer to 1:800 chance that they have cancer. Wondering if anyone was going to answer. Btw that is the statistics of these 136 or whatever children that have not passed these tests. Mostly likely none of them have thyroid cancer.

Precisely. There is no control group for what this person claims. When control groups are considered, these kids actually exhibit the same results. They find a lot more potentially cancerous cells when they screen with sensitive tests that have not been used before.

So what you are saying is that no one thought to compare the death rates? If children are going undiagnosed, in your idea that the cancer rates are the same - then they'll just die - apparently with no one knowing why.

Seriously people, this is some of the stupidest reasoning ever. You figure the children from the control set would just mysteriously dissapear and no one knows about it?

Talk about confirmation bias! deny, then come up with ridiculous proclamations.

You don't understand what a control set is. They need to conduct the same screenings on control populations to determine if there is any statistical difference from the Fukushima population. And to this point, when that has been done, the findings of the Fukushima group are consistent and even lower than other groups. But this person intentionally ignores that data and rather uses a comparison against historical unscreened populations, which of course are going to be much lower because they haven not been s

In the rest of the world, children do not routinely get several ultrasounds per year to check for thyroid cancer. Is it really suprising that we'd find much more of something we're looking Really Hard to Find?

So, I guess my real question is: Where's the control population that gets the same checks as the Fukushima population? And what's their rate of thyroid cancer?

Is thyroid cancer one of those benign cancers that doesn't cause you to get ill? I ask because only if that's true is it possible for the rate in a control population to be the same as for the Fukushima children and we're not aware of it. Given a rate of 20-50 times the normal rates it doesn't seem possible that it's not related to the reactor meltdown.

Presumably if I had got thyroid cancer at a young age I would know it by now at the age of 63. I don't think I've ever been screened for thyroid cancer but of course during my yearly check-ups the doctor does palpate my thyroids to see if they're swollen and does check my level of thyroid hormones in the blood screenings. I don't know how long you can have thyroid cancer and not have it diagnosed but I doubt it's more than a few years.

It may well be several years, but I'd be surprised if it were several decades.

The problem is, what is the false positive rate? I don't know the test at all, but there are rates of false positives that would make this not in the slightest alarming, and there are also rates that would make this horrendous. (And lets not forget that there are also false negatives, to complicate the matter.)

FWIW, skimming the article did not reveal either the name of the test or the expected rate of false positives, making it

Sorry, but there are slow growing cancers as well as aggressive ones. Just because your doctor decides not to treat your prostate cancer doesn't mean that it's not cancer, it just means that it's not an aggressive one, and you'll likely die of something else before it causes problems. (Well, and treating it is, itself, likely to cause problems.)

So the cancer not being an aggressive cancer wouldn't mean it wasn't a cancer. Benign tumors are different, and inherently limited (until, of course, they mutate)

In the rest of the world, children do not routinely get several ultrasounds per year to check for thyroid cancer. Is it really suprising that we'd find much more of something we're looking Really Hard to Find?

So what you are saying is that if a child does not get tested for thyroid cancer, the child will cure themselves of it?

Seriuoosly cancer does not work like that most of the time. As in the really rare cases of spontaneous remission.

If in a normal population, of say 100,000 children let's say 5 get thyroid cancer

If these children in Fukushima get 25 cases for everty 100,000 children, and that is survey bias, and there is no statistical difference, Your thesis is that either testing causes thyroid can

Seriuoosly cancer does not work like that most of the time. As in the really rare cases of spontaneous remission.

We don't actually know that. We know that thyroid cancer that gets bad enough to be symptomatic doesn't just go away spontaneously. We have no idea what percentage of cases detected in intensive screening will just go away because intensive screening is rare. We don't know how many of the positives are false.

No they don't have 137 confirmed cases. They have 137 *potential* cases from a test that has a *false positive* rate. The quote are media BS "Dude on a phone said...". Show me the data. Real data, not "OMG Radiation!" Incidentally they don't even have that data. How many of the 137 were not exposed to *any* radiation?

I especially liked the tear-jerker about the poor kid who started getting nosebleeds.

Mind you, I'm not really sure why the author thinks that the nosebleeds are in any way related to thyroid cancer (the girl in question was not mentioned as one of the 137).

I was also amused by the PhD who said "this isn't screening, it's real!". How the hell does he know? Did he actually go over there and examine patients or anything? And if he did, why wasn't that mentioned in TFA? Seems more likely he h

It's called population based screens. We have studied thyroid cancer for decades for obvious reasons. It's actually one of the easier things to (eventually) diagnose. We know what the baseline should be, the studies are getting higher than baseline levels.

The one criticism from TFA

Scott Davis, professor at the Department of Epidemiology in the Seattle-based School of Public Health, said the key limitation of Tsuda's study is the lack of individual-level data to estimate actual radiation doses.

Which apparently is true but does not invalidate the population based frequency data:

David J. Brenner, professor of radiation biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center, took a different view. While he agreed individual estimates on radiation doses are needed, he said in a telephone interview that the higher thyroid cancer rate in Fukushima is "not due to screening. It's real."

It is something that should eventually be pretty clear, the issue now is to get as many cancers diagnosed when it's "easy" to treat.

Now, does anyone actually believe what TEPCO says about how much radioactive material went airborne? I certainly don't. They haven't said anything truthful since the disaster occurred unless they have had to backtrack after somebody else called them on it.

Those screens are meaningless unless compared to a control. If you run a more sensitive test, you can find more pre-cancerous cells... but those exist in lots of people, not just the people near Fukushima. You have to do the same test on a control group or you're not comparing apples to apples here.

I don't have to believe TEPCO at all--radiation is measurable. Let's look at measurements and methodology.

You have thousands of earthquake deaths and we're still freaked out over the 0 people who have died fro

No there are not. And yes I am a doctor. Cancer is by definition NOT benign. Now you may be referring to less aggressive cancers and yes there are plenty of those. Basal cell carcinoma for example. Some prostate cancers. Cervical cancers. All of those are very slow in the growing and spreading. However thyroid cancers, due to their location, are obvious pretty quickly. People tend to wonder about that lump sticking out of their throat.

Still all of that is besides the point. When autopsies are performed, any cancers are noted even when the patient dies of unrelated conditions. For example almost ALL men over age 80 and ALL men above 90 have prostate cancer, although most of them die from something else. So yes you're right in that cancer can go undetected. But you are wrong in thinking we don't know exactly what the "normal" amount of cancer is in a population.

Still all of that is besides the point. When autopsies are performed, any cancers are noted even when the patient dies of unrelated conditions. For example almost ALL men over age 80 and ALL men above 90 have prostate cancer, although most of them die from something else. So yes you're right in that cancer can go undetected. But you are wrong in thinking we don't know exactly what the "normal" amount of cancer is in a population.

Are you suggesting that every dead person gets a full autopsy? Because that is not even close to be true.

About cancer and tumors: you're right, but I don't think that who wrote this article knows the difference.

Are you suggesting that every dead person gets a full autopsy? Because that is not even close to be true.

In some countries, close to it. However you don't have to autopsy every single person to get a pretty good idea of how the situation is in the general population. If you did then statisticians would be out of work. Enough autopsies have been performed over the years to get fairly reliable data - but autopsies are not the only source of data. They were my counter to the "hidden cancer" argument. Quite a lot of people with cancer actually do see a doctor about it. Sometimes too late. But the capture rate is p

And now that I think about it: when you have no idea why someone drops dead, that person certainly gets an autopsy in all but the poorest countries. So the guy who didn't know he had cancer and died from it - well there you go, he gets added to the statistics. So the ONLY case that probably wouldn't get covered is the guy with a known chronic illness who dies from his illness and who by the way had an asymptomatic, undetected cancer. That's a very small segment of the population. OK I'm done.

That is not even close to be true. The number of autopsies in the western world dwindled since the '70s. Here an article [www4.ti.ch] about autopsies in the Canton Ticino [wikipedia.org] (Switzerland, not a poor country by any means): 304 autopsies in 1977, 144 in 2007. The same trend is present in all the other University and Cantonal hospitals of Switzerland. According to this site [medscape.com] in the United States before 1970, autopsies were performed in 40% to 60% of all cases involving hospital deaths, while in recent years, that number has d

No, it's not cancer. It's an indication of possible cancer. What is the rate of false positives? I don't know, you don't know, the article didn't say. It also didn't name the test, so you can't easily look it up.

You can't accurately tell whether this is normally expectable or horrendous. The information to decide that isn't present.

That is nonsense here and rather obviously so. (The lies of the nuclear-apologists are really staggering and so is their stupidity...)

The ultrasound makes you find it earlier, you know when there is a better chance to treat it. It does not make you find more at all. Cancer has a way it making itself known at some point and it has an extremely low spontaneous remission rate (i.e. it almost never vanishes by itself).

The lies of the nuclear-apologists are really staggering and so is their stupidity...

Perhaps. And perhaps the Anonymous Coward you're answering is pro-nuclear. We don't know, since he only made a comment on methodology. What we do know is that you're following a tribal politics approach to engineering decisions, which will most certainly result in lots people getting hurt needlessly, either directly or through economic consequences.

On the other hand, hairline fractures heal and vanish by themselves and many do not cause problems. Both not true for cancer. And for the _rate_ it does not matter at what time it has been detected. Really, how stupid are you people?

Reminds me of using 6-sigma process on a widget made of 112 parts and 16 widgets/year.

Or using Critical Path Management for programming projects when you are the only programmer in the organization.

Boss: [interrupting work] "I need to see a CPM chart with tasks and personnel."Programmer: "Okay." [produces chart with a horizontal row of connected boxes] "See? There's only one path, it's all critical, and it's all me."Boss: "Better get on it then."

Thyroid cancer can be treated with surgery and radiotherapy, that leaves a scar on the front of your neck. Sadly we know from experience that children will be bullied because of this mark, and will face discrimination. A course of radioactive iodine is usually taken to kill any remaining thyroid cells, and makes you quite sick for a while.

After treatment, you have to take thyroxine for the rest of your life. That's 70+ years for these kids. Thyroxine has some side effects. Because you have no thyroid you ca

show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children

Elsewhere, the disease occurs in only about one or two of every million children per year by some estimates."

Why do you include 'suspected' cases? How about splitting up those two completely different diagnoses? If it is 1 confirmed and 136 suspected, that would change the conclusion of this study, since it could potentially put it more in line with the estimates. Also, you would need the results of the same ultrasound checkups on a few hundred thousand kids living outside Fukushima to really determine if there is an increased risk of cancer or not. Going by some vague estimates isn't as accurate.

Are the usual pro-nuke ppl. here going to trumpet the same old "no injuries from Fukushima" line, over and over again?

Probably, but nobody except other wackjobs believes them. The more interesting but infinitely harder to address question is whether or not nuclear power, with all it's warts (Chernobyl, Hanford, Fukishima, bog-knows-what-all-is-left-in-Russia) is more or less dangerous than fossil fuels in general.

My best guess is that it's considerably safer since the data on coal looks pretty bad.

The only real problem for nuclear is that it's too damned expensive compared to fossil fuels and now even solar and wind. It's a horribly complex technology that it's adherents fucked up badly by not carefully and consistently holding to the highest of engineering standards (like naval reactors). They cheaped out and they are paying the price.

You are right that it's all about comparing risks of different power. But fear of radiation is harmful on it's own. 1600 people died [nytimes.com] from fear of radiation while thus far no one has died of the radiation (estimates I've read vary greatly so I'm not going to quote any of them about the long term effect). Whatever your opinion about nuclear power, the FEAR of it is a problem and IS costing lives, whether that is this type of fear or keeping us dependent upon fossil fuels which cost a lot of lives.

Don't blame nuclear for this one. They didn't give the residents iodine tablets [save-child...iation.org]. They distributed the tablets [npr.org] at the time of the accident, but never gave them to the evacuated residents. That's pretty much like if the Titanic had had enough liferafts to save everyone, but after it struck the iceberg they decided not to put anyone aboard the liferafts. Yeah the ship sank, but the deaths were caused by the safety measure in place to save the people aboard not being used, not the sinking itself.

The only real problem for nuclear is that it's too damned expensive compared to fossil fuels and now even solar and wind.

That's only a problem in the west where we not only don't have a level playing field by we actively balance it away from nuclear towards both green AND coal to protect the interests of the existing industries while paying lip service to the greenies.

If you look to the middle east and to the west they can't build the things fast enough, and yet they don't seem to be bankrupting themselves.

And if there's equipment failure (like there was at Fukishima caused by the earthquake and tsunami), it wouldn't have mattered if it was automated. Automated equipment can still fail (especially when it's exposed to sea water).

Not from radiation. Its quite hard to run around using full face masks breathing though regulators. Depending on radiation levels people are severely limited in how much time they can spend being exposed to radiation.The fact is those standards are quite exaggerated. If radiation exposure limits were relaxed deaths could have been avoided by allowing people to do their jobs in a lesser hurry.Tsunami killed 20 thousand people. Forced evacuation in a hurry killed hundreds. If people were allowed to stay in al

The tsunami killed 20 thousand people. A nearby oil refinery burned for days, killed dozens polluted the environment just as seriously as the nuclear reactor, but got no attention as nuclear/radiation=sensational, oil fire=boring.The problem isn't nuclear its the media that has been bribed by fossil fuel interests to put nuclear power under a microscope while giving fossil fuels a pass.Even if Fukushima eventually kills a hundred, it should have been a non event, as coal kills as many people every DAY ! Oil

Of course, none of the old rods that were in storage in the pools above the reactors burned and vaporized into the air, or anything.:) After they were exposed to the air for days or weeks.

Hydrogen explosions in the main buildings when it was vented is the big memory I have; seeing that on the news, and knowing why there's hydrogen to vent, I know pretty well what happened to the reactors.

Radiation is everywhere.Massive distance from radiation levels that are likely to give you cancer from actual levels @ Fukushima.Radiation isn't like fire you can see and avoid. On the other hand radiation is everywhere.A little radiation is proven to be good for you. Otherwise cancer levels at Denver, SLC, Aspen and Vail must be higher than in NYC or LA. In fact its the opposite.If 20x background radiation levels were bad, there would be a serious pattern of more cancers among jet pilots than general popul

Unless you have a double blind study to point to, why the fuck are you linking to some 3rd-hand article? "A new study says" is meaningless, in this context.Don't cite articles and call it news. We have a standard of proof, so follow it or you're part of the misinformation problem.

So you intend to sign up to a study where you have a 50% chance to receive radiation which has a high likelihood of causing thyroid cancer? No? Why not, as you believe there is no proof it should be harmless, no?

As you only accept one standard of proof, care to show me a setup to proof the existence of gravitation. I mean you just have to do the same experiment, one time with and the other without it, as obviously only a double blind test can show that there really is an effect.

Once it was a standard Item to Equip in your cool backyard or basement buried shelter medical kit.Iodine Tablets that protect the thyroid form radiation?They knew this in the 50's why aren't the children receiving this now as a precaution? Or is it now considered unsafe?

Once it was a standard Item to Equip in your cool backyard or basement buried shelter medical kit.Iodine Tablets that protect the thyroid form radiation?They knew this in the 50's why aren't the children receiving this now as a precaution? Or is it now considered unsafe?

Dr. Yamashita, former Director of Fukushima Health Mangagement Suryey and a leading figure of thyroid cancer study in the world, has been actively involved in thyroid cancer research in Chernobyl for over 20 years since 1991. Dr. Yamashita was a radiation risk advisor for Fukushima prefecture at the time of the nuclear accident. Despite his experiences in Chernobyl, he assured that distributing iodine tablets to residents in Fukushima, even in the evacuation zones, was unnecessary. However, the distribution of iodine tablets had been discussed within Fukushima Medical University (FMU), especially during the first 1 week after the accident.

But because no permission was given by the national government and the prefecture, the plan was never carried out. .

Surprisingly, there was a group of people who took the iodine tablets under the circumstances. They were doctors, nurses, administrative stuff and their children/relatives, and the students of Fukushima Medical University.

If only they had some radiation with which to treat those cancers... particularly radiation in shell fish, given shell fish are a common source of iodine.

Isn't it more likely that avoiding eating fish would account for the difference (assuming there is one, after you control for "suspected cases", and you compare to a relatively unexposed genetically similar population of children elsewhere in Japan, I mean)?

The study was released online this week and is being published in the November issue of Epidemiology, produced by the Herndon, Virginia-based International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. The data comes from tests overseen by Fukushima Medical University

It sounds like that journal has been around for more than 25 years, and the study was done by a PUBLIC medical university. Why should there be such a great bias there to defeat the nuclear industry?

The screening data is from Fukushima Medical University. They are not making these claims. Their data is being used by the "environmental" society you referenced in a biased manner. They used the guise for the Fukushima Medical University to try and claim a peer review, however society study was not. I see they fooled you as well. They are good at that.

OMG ! All of this paranoia.Radiation level was far too low to actually cause detectable increase in cancer cases.I'm positive when this is all said and done, 10 years from now there will be no significant increase in cancer cases and no reason to believe in additional cancer deaths over normal levels.Having small cancer formations happen to a lot of people without actually being a 'cancer case'. It could be benign, it could also not evolve into cancer (uncontrolled multiplication of cells).Radiation safety

Well, if one kid's cancer is discovered early and treated due to the enhanced screening started after the Fukushima event, that kid may be lucky that Fukushima took place, otherwise it may have been too late when discovered.

Parent did NOT deserve 'Troll'. The study mentioned in TA is controversial. People are moderating with their balls not their brains, and their balls shrivel up when anyone suggests there may not be some dire emergency at Fukushima related to killer radiation. But even so,

We've seen this hoax before, why am I not surprised there are people still pushing it? The only difference with this one is how poorly written it is. Cancer rates are actually lower than expected/normal around Fukushima.

Calling it a 'hoax' is going way too far, you should calm down too. It's still early to make definitive statements about cancers, but there is certainly no 'spike'. One of the main reasons the government took the (courageous) position tha